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In recent years, pessimism about plebiscitary intra-party democracy has been challenged by assembly-based models of intra-party democracy. However, research has yet to explore the emergence of new power dynamics in parties originating from the implementation of deliberative practices in their intra-party democracy. We investigate how deliberative democratization reshuffles power relations within political parties through a case study of Agora, an internally deliberative movement party in Belgium. Employing a process-tracing approach using original interview and participant observation data, we argue that while plebiscitary intra-party democracy shifts power towards passive members prone to elite domination, our case suggests that deliberative intra-party democracy shifts power towards active members that are more likely to be critical of elites.

Gender inequalities in political ambition and participation persistently concern those aiming for more gender emancipation in the political realm. Although female descriptive representation has increased in many Western democracies, gender differences in political participation endure (Fox and Lawless, 2014;Burns et al, 2018;Wolak, 2020), harming the representation of women's interests (Wängnerud, 2009). An important pathway to why women are less inclined to become politically active is their lower confidence levels, specifically in a political setting (Wolak, 2020). Internal political efficacy (IPE) refers to individuals' self-confidence about their abilities to understand and engage with politics (Beaumont, 2010), and IPE is a strong predictor of political participation (Levy and Akiva, 2019). Analogously with the general notion of self-efficacy, it is argued that people are highly influenced by their self-confidence to successfully carry out a task and be motivated to do so: 'Unless people believe they can produce desired outcomes, they have little incentive to address challenging tasks, to pursue ambitious goals, and to persevere in the face of difficulties' (Caprara et al, 2009(Caprara et al, : 1004.The same holds in the political field, where people's beliefs in their political capabilities mediate future political participation (Levy and Akiva, 2019). Political scientists started researching IPE in the 1950s as an essential determinant of political participation. One of the first accounts described IPE as a 'feeling that political and social change is possible and that the individual citizen can play a part in bringing about this change' (Campbell et al, 1954: 187). Empirical studies conducted with data from Europe, Canada and the US consistently show lower levels of IPE for women than men despite their having similar resources (